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System32 Folder Disapearred

Tyn

Posted 27 October 2005 - 09:21 PM

Tyn

New Member

Member

4 posts

Hi, new to the forums, hoping someone here can help.

A family member recently installed Limewire on my PC. When I closed Limwire so I could uninstall it, Limewire would re-open itself several times. I checked the downloads folder out of curiosity, and saw several *.rar archives all 82KB but having the names of popular new programs and games.

Said family member told me they had extracted a few of these, and of course the PC (home built) began to have serious issues. I was getting tons of pop-ups etc. Booted into safemode ran Lavasoft, Spybot S&D, Trend Micro, etc. Managed to minimalize the pop-ups to one or two in IE and none in Firefox (Primary Browser). Assumed problem was fixed, but just to be sure decided to install the trial version of Panda's Titanium Antivirus 2006. When I tried to install it, however, I had several errors when Panda tried to put any *.dlls in the System32 folder. I decided to go and take a look, and upon opening the Windows folder, lo and behold there was no System32. (all folder and file viewing options are enabled) The only way I can get to the System32 folder is to type it in manually in the Adress Bar. On top of this, I have also begun to get the infamous IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error message if I attempt to play any games. I have checked my IRQ addresses, none of the critical components share an address. (I have a nic and my HPT RAID controller sharing one, and four USBs sharing another....still, I have never had this BSoD before)

I suspect that there is some type of malware etc. that is blocking access to System32 or some such thing, and hopefully that is what is causes the other problems. Don't know if anyone can help, but if there is any way I can get around this without having to format, it would be a total life saver. Thanks again.